SOLD. 789 Canniff Place: a pretty, grey-brick backsplit at the end of a cul-de-sac with a green yard you could train a horse in. Two horses, even. Run your own gymkhana on holiday weekends. Sell tickets. Hire a food truck.

On Quebec St, at the edge of the Fruit Belt and an easy walk from Friendship Park and McBurney, the downtown core, is a tidy row of six yellow-brick-fronted duplexes. You’ve driven by them without really noticing perhaps. I find I do that a lot. I dream my way through the neighbourhood.

SOLD. From the sky-high rooftop deck of this downtown red-brick triplex at 9 Balaclava St, the tenants can look out over McBurney Park. Perhaps the playground is shrouded in mist, the distant and fogged-in treetops not much more than vague notions, a suspicion of elms...

SOLD Corrigan St. If you’re trying to place the address, it’s just north of Raglan Rd and runs between Rideau and Bagot. There’s a cool old farmhouse on the north side of the street, and a view across the Cataraqui River of Barriefield and St Mark’s Church in Barriefield.

Lots of realtors are sitting around in their offices staring hard at their phones right now. It doesn’t matter how busy they were last year, the fear in January is always the same: I’m done for, the gig is up, and how the heck am I going to pay the mortgage. That’s the thinking.

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I live a couple of minutes down the street from the Artillery Park Aquatic Centre. These places were called community centres back when I was growing up in England. A place where you got to know some of your neighbours and worked out some of your frustrations.

Sold. This three-bedroom one bath sidesplit is on a handsome 60 by 180 lot on a Collins Bay sidestreet. You’re a two-minute drive to Tim’s and the same to the wonderful Bella Bistro, one of my favourites. And for the first little while after you take possession, the best part of the day might well be when you get to head out the door and drive away for coffee or dinner.

Sold. Here’s the thing (and you should know this up front): You buy this house and you’re going to end up with a realtor for a neighbour, because I live three doors down. And that may put off a good number of you. I understand that.

Sold. We don’t do a big trade in student rentals and I doubt we ever will. We’re just not the first names that come to mind. We don’t have the long track record in that part of the market, or the Rolodex full of investors’ names, the monied parents of Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College students. So I understand.